My Top 5 Navigation Tools for the Camino del Norte

When it comes to finding your way from Irún to Santiago, modern pilgrims on the Camino Del Norte have a bevy of options.

In the past, many people relied solely upon their general sense of direction and the symbols marking the way. But is the simple advice of: “keep the ocean to your right and just head west,” really the best way to ensure you get to Santiago safely? What other navigation tools exist out there to keep pilgrims from getting lost or taking a lot of detours?

During my recent walk on the Camino del Norte in the fall of 2022, I used five different methods of finding the route. So if you’re in the planning stage for an upcoming walk on the Camino Del Norte and want to know which navigation tools are best for your own adventure style, here’s my general thoughts on each one.

#1 – Village to Village Guidebook

There’s no shortage of physical guidebooks for the Camino. Some are chock full of Camino history while others are just a compilation of maps. The 96-page Village to Village Camino Del Norte guidebook seemed to be the most popular and portable English-language guidebook used on the Camino Del Norte. I carried this thin, full-color guidebook for my entire journey and would strongly recommend it to other pilgrims. It weighs a scant 3.4 ounces and fits easily into a quart-sized storage bag or cargo pocket.

Cost: $24.95

⬆️ Pros

• Tangible. Having a physical guidebook and maps in hand when walking in a foreign place is always a good idea. And there’s just something enjoyable about flipping back and forth through the pages (especially during rest breaks or in the evening) to see what lies ahead as you plan out your day.
• Stages. Guidebooks tend to break the entire length of the Camino down into manageable daily distances referred to as “stages.” This is a great tool for novice pilgrims who aren’t quite comfortable with planning their own long distance hike, and it’s a tool that doesn’t exist with most navigation apps. In this guidebook, each stage stretches between 15-30 kilometers in length.
• Elevation profile. The inside cover of this guidebook includes an elevation profile of entire the Camino, and there’s an even more detailed elevation data on the pages for each stage. This tool allow pilgrims to see how hilly the upcoming terrain is going to be, because all kilometers are not created equal! 
• Lightweight. Unlike some of the more comprehensive guidebooks, the Village to Village guide is primarily focused on navigation and lodging. This allows it to be extremely lightweight and compact in size (5″ x 7″) and less than 100 pages in length.
• Maps. Having detailed, color maps of the towns and amenities comes in very handy when trying to navigate your way to a grocery store or albergue within an unfamiliar city.
• Albergue list. Each stage includes the towns you’ll walk through and the names of the albergues located therein, with data about the number of beds, cost, address, phone number, and what amenities are offered (e.g., laundry, wifi, food)   
• Back up plan. Even pilgrims who intend on relying on a digital app for navigation, should have a back up plan. You never know whether you’ll lose (or damage) your phone on a long journey like the Camino. 

⬇️ Cons

• Dated Info. Guidebooks are just a snapshot in time, making it out-of-date almost as soon as the book is printed. Some albergues will have closed since the data was last verified for print, and new ones will have sprung up too. Also, it seems that prices are constantly changing on the Camino.
• Closures. This guidebook doesn’t have any information about pandemic-related closures. Many municipal albergues seemed to have temporarily shut down for Covid, and still aren’t back open yet. Others re-opened, but with fewer beds to allow for social distancing. To finding the most up-to-date lodging, pilgrims will need to turn to online resources or make phone calls.
• Stages. While pre-planned stages in a guidebook may be a nice tool for less-experienced walkers, the towns at the end of these stages can also turn into choke points. Thus, pilgrims who rely on any guidebook should consider adjusting their start/end points to create their own ‘stages’ based on own their daily interests and physical abilities. Don’t get stuck doing someone else’s idea of a good Camino.
• Cost. If you are on a limited budget, the $25 price tag of this tiny guidebook make seem a bit steep, especially when compared to the digital navigation apps on the market (which are closer to the $5-10 range). 

#2 – Wise Pilgrim (‘NORTE’) APP

The Norte navigation app was developed by Wise Pilgrim as part of their series of Camino navigation guides. If you’re buying one digital navigation app for your smart phone, it should be this one! It’s the tool most other pilgrims on the Camino Del Norte will be using, regardless of which country they hail from. Moreover, and it’s been around longer than the other navigation apps and has a some interoperabilty tools for lodging that simply don’t exist with other apps.

Cost: $4.99

⬆️ Pros

• Comprehensive. Of all the navigation tools currently available for the Camino del Norte, the Wise Pilgrim digital app seems to be the most well-rounded one on the market. It has data about towns and interesting sights on the Camino, primary and alternate routes, the ability to make reservations, crowd-sourced comments from prior pilgrims, and so much more. 
• Popularity. One of the strengths of this app is the comments section used to share information. The Norte app draws from largest number of users, which translates into more recent and relevant comments, especially with information about which albergues are currently opened or closed (a bigger deal than ever since Covid)
• Icons. Within the app, pilgrims will see various icons indicating the services available next to each town. Some of the more useful icons show cafes/restaurants, groceries, lodging, ATMs, and pharmacies. This essentially lets you determine at a glance whether a town has robust services, no services, or something in between. 
• Alternate routes. The Camino del Norte has a number of alternate routes that will keep pilgrims closer to the ocean views. This app not only provides the navigation for those alternates, but tells users what they can expect to see along the route, and whether an alternate will be longer (or shorter) than the main route.
• Albergue contacts. In my experience, pilgrims needed to make reservations at most albergues, hotels, or pensiónes on the Camino del Norte, otherwise they risk not having anywhere to stay. The Norte app includes up-to-date contact information for most lodging options in each town, including hyperlinks for phone numbers, WhatsApp numbers, and email. 
• Booking.com.  In addition to the phone and email contact information, many private albergues and hotels have hyperlinks in the Norte app allowing pilgrims to make reservations via Booking.com. This online reservation tool is a particularly useful for pilgrims with limited fluency in Spanish.
• Maps. The map function on this app is available off-line, and it includes icons showing where the lodging and food is located within each town. This is particularly helpful when encountering towns that have a spiderweb-like network of streets that’s hard to navigate.
• Weight.  Unlike a physical guidebook, using this app requires no additional weight or space, provided you’re already carrying a smartphone (which most pilgrims bring along these days).

⬇️ Cons

• GPS Precision. While this app satisfying a lot of needs, the actual navigation aspect is less precise than other apps (like FarOut). The GPS function can be a little bit glitchy or delayed, leading to believe you are further away from a location than you actually are. It will still get you to Santiago, but isn’t the best for finer location finding.
• Provinces.  One way the app developers were able to get this much data to run fast enough was by breaking it all down by province. Pilgrims only need to open the Basque region when looking at that data, then can open Cantabria, Asturias, and Galicia provinces separately, as they are needed. This division generally works out fine, except when trying to plan out the days when you cross the border between two provinces. You may have to toggle back and forth, which can be a little clumsy because you cannot view two provinces at the same time.

#3 – Farout App

The FarOut app (formerly known as Guthook) is a newcomer among Camino guide apps, but one worth mentioning here because it’s so widely used by long-distance hikers in the U.S. This guide can be downloaded to pilgrim’s phones and provides GPS functions off-line without a local SIM card. Hikers can see their location on a pre-programmed map of the route. However, this is truly just a navigation app, so it has far less information or functionality than the Norte app discused above.

Cost: $9.99

⬆️ PROS

• Familiarity.  Using this app and its features is going to feel very familiar for anyone who’s previously used a FarOut or Guthook guide. Just follow the red line (for the main route) or the blue line (for alternate routes), and you’ll eventually get to your desired location.
• Map and Elevation. The interoperability between the map view and the elevation profile view is where the FarOut app really shines. Users can open the map view, where the GPS function will show you exactly where you are located, and then toggle over to the elevation view so you can see your position in relation to the elevation (and how much further you have until the top of the climb!).
• GPS accuracy. The GPS location on this app seems far more precise than the one in the Norte App. As soon as you toggle the button on, you get you exact location within a second or too. There’s no lag or glitchiness. 
• Distance. The FarOut app allows pilgrims can check their exact location to the nearest 0.1 kilometers on the Camino. This makes it super easy to calculate the distance between your current location to the next landmark/town. Most other navigation apps only provide the distances between towns, so users are stuck estimating when between those known points.
• Kilometers and miles. FarOut allows users to display distances in kilometers or miles. Many Americans prefer this tool so they don’t have to do the mental math when calculating their hiking pace or distance. 

⬇️ CONS

• Limited Info. The town data in the FarOut app seems to be based on just a handful of pilgrims’ experiences. The app doesn’t show the vast majority of smaller towns with services, nor provide any detailed information about them. Instead it seems to focus primarily on the towns the beta testers stopped in. 
• Water. One of FarOut’s most useful tools on other long-distance trails is the crowd-sourced comments about backcountry water sources. That’s not really needed here because pilgrims rely on public water taps and fountains for most of their daily hydration needs. However, some towns don’t have any easy-to-locate potable water sources (or even shops to buy water). So adding the locations of public fountains or water taps along this route would be a major improvement to the app.
• Town Maps. This app is hyper-focused on navigation of the route itself (and some of the alternates). It doesn’t provide comprehensive offline maps of the towns it goes through where pilgrims might stop to eat or sleep. This omission means pilgrims will definitely need a guidebook, the Norte app, or some other resource to round out their tools for their journey. 

#4 – Camino markers

Simply following the Camino markers along the route is a tried and true navigation method used by pilgrims for decades. However, it’s also the one that’s mostly likely to get you lost! The quality, frequency, and consistency of visual Camino markers varies greatly from province to province (and even town to town). The route is usually marked with a yellow arrow or a scallop shell, but often pilgrims will come to a fork in their route with no markings at all and have to guess which direction just “feels right.”

Cost: Free

⬆️ Pros

• Simple. The Camino symbols have led pilgrims to Santiago for ages. Virtually anyone can follow them. There’s no language barrier to get in the way. Just follow the arrow or shell, and you’re on your way.
• The Experience. When you put the guidebook and apps away, you start to feel the natural rhythm of the Camino. You naturally focus on your surroundings a bit more. And you begin to feel like you’re on an adventure, rather than letting other tools constantly spoil the surprise of what’s ahead. 

⬇️ Cons

• Towns. While the Camino del Norte is well-marked overall, once you enter bigger towns and winding streets, it become much harder to spot markers. Markers can be hidden in plain sight by construction, parked cars, or other distractions. Thus, if the only thing you’re relying upon is the last symbol you saw, it’s very easy to wind up walking in the wrong direction.
• Orientation. Pilgrims who rely exclusively on markers need to know some of the quirky differences they’re bound to encounter. For example, pilgrims will often see a scallop shell without an arrow on their journey. When traveling through the province of Asturias, the hinge (or bottom) of the shell is always oriented toward the direction of travel. But in other provinces, the shell is simply a symbol of the Camino – and its orientation often has no relevance at all.
• Maintenance. Unfortunately, the signs and markers on the Camino are not equally maintained. Some may be in pristine condition, while others are defaced or missing the arrow. Marking also wear down over time if there isn’t anyone maintaining them. A yellow spray-painted arrow on a signpost can easily disappear after years in the warm Spanish sun. 
• Commerce. Pilgrims coming into small towns often equal money. Thus, a business owner with an albergue or restaurant off-the-beaten path might try to divert the Camino’s foot traffic with a few extra arrows so pilgrims to pass in front of their establishment. Unfortunately, these enterprising folks usually only paint extra arrows toward their business, not looping back to the true Camino. 
• Darkness. If you are relying solely on the Camino markers to guide the way, be prepared for some difficulty in the early hours of the day. Yellow arrows are extremely difficult to see in twilight or darkness, even with the assistance of a headlamp.
• Culture. Following the Camino markers might get you to your destination, but it won’t provide any of the history of the area. Nor will it give directions toward interesting detours that could make your Camino a richer cultural experience. 

#5 – Other pilgrims

No one walks the Camino alone. Even if you start on a solo walk across Spain, you are bound to meet other pilgrims at cafes or albergues, or even along the route while you are walking. It’s common to see the same faces over and over each day, as most pilgrims walk similar distances at relatively the same pace. After time, some pilgrims even form little trail families during their walk across Spain. So whether you pair up with someone for the duration, or just walk side-by-side for an hour, you will probably end up relying on your fellow pilgrims to help lead the way.

Cost: Free

⬆️ PROS

• Community. Walking with other pilgrims and searching for the Camino route together builds a sense of community and camaraderie you wouldn’t have if you were walking alone. It also means you have extra eyes when you go into towns. And before long, finding symbols and markers feel more like a fun scavenger hunt than anything else.
• Shared Resources. Walking sections of the Camino with other pilgrims – particularly those who hail from different countries than you – can provide you with additional tools and resources you don’t have on your own (i.e., Spanish/European SIM card, local knowledge, and language skills, different guidebooks)
• Another Way. Relying on other pilgrims to help find the route may introduce you to other aspect of the camino that you didn’t even know you were missing out on. When I walked with one pilgrim, I found that I was more intentional about stopping to visit the insides of churches because that’s what he did. With another, I stopped for longer breaks at the beaches. In each case, I was enjoying different aspects of the Camino that I might have otherwise bypassed on my own.

⬇️ Cons

• Shared Incompetence. Walking with some pilgrims can be like the blind leading the blind. Don’t assume everyone knows more than you. Pilgrims confidently insisting, “This is the correct way,” can still lead you awry. Your navigation will only be as good as the combined skills of the people you surround yourself with.
• Compromise. Relying on other pilgrims for navigation can result in unexpectedly hitching your wagon to someone else’s Camino goals rather than you own. This compromise may force you to walk further (or shorter) than you’d like, or at a pace that’s significantly faster (or slower) than your body is comfortable going.
• Choke Points. Once you begin walking with another of pilgrim (or group), it can lead to a drain on local resources. Lines at cafes become longer because several people are stopping at the same moment instead of trickling in at intervals. Beds in albergues are filled in by duos and trios instead of by individual pilgrims. Essentially, it has the unintended consequence of forming choke points along the Camino.
• Therapy. Navigating the Camino with someone else can also unintentionally burden your journey. Many pilgrims come to the Camino hoping to mentally work through complex emotional or life issues. So sometimes, you can get unwittingly roped into becoming an armchair therapist, rather than just a happy-go-lucky walking companion.

Final Thoughts

Of course there are more ways to navigate the Camino Del Norte than the five options I’ve provided in this blog post. If you’re interested in more information on this topic, I’d invite you to check out the following blogs from other experienced pilgrims.

• Recommended Apps and Maps for Camino de Santiago (One Step and Then Another)
• The 5 Best Camino de Santiago Apps & Pilgrimage Planning Tools (Wayfaring Views)
• The Camino Del Norte Walking Stages (Stingy Nomads)

The adventure begins in the planning. But don’t spend all your time dreaming or hyper-focused on whether you have the perfect Camino app or guidebook. You have to simply get out there and begin. Buen Camino!